Green Scarf

The note simply read: “Gone to Ireland, be back in a month,” with a little carelessly drawn shamrock in the corner. It wasn’t signed, but it didn’t need to be. Kyle knew it was from his roommate, Adam.

He put the note down and walked into Adam’s bedroom. When he opened his closest door he saw that most of Adam’s clothing was gone as was his suit case. “It could still be a joke,” Kyle said to the empty closet. He shut the door and returned to the kitchen where he had left the note, but walked past it to the phone above the counter and dialed the number to Adam’s cell phone. No answer. Next he tried Adam’s mother. This time he got a response.

“Yes, he’s gone to Ireland.” She spoke in her thick northern accent. She sounded like one of the characters from Fargo only funnier because she was real.

“Did he say why?”

“Oh, he may have mentioned something. Let me think.” There was a pause on the other end of the phone before she spoke again, “He said something about his girlfriend. You know Tina? Oh yes, of course you do. She was at that little get-together you threw for Adam’s birthday. Well, anyway, they had a bit of a tiff, I guess you could call it, and he flew up there to see her I suppose. Seems pretty drastic if you ask me. Not that she’s not a lovely girl. Just a bit on the wild side if you know what I mean…”

She continued this way for a good ten minutes, rambling on about Tina and Adam, but not giving any more information about what they had a fight about, or more importantly, what Tina was doing in Ireland in the first place. She didn’t even know how to get a hold of him while he was there. “Don’t worry,” she said, “I’m sure he’ll be giving you a call in a day or so. He can’t go long without talking to his best friend you know.”

Kyle hoped he’d call. If not only to know why the fuck he ran off to Ireland in the middle of spring semester, but to find out if Adam expected him to pay his half of the rent this month. He could hear Adam now, “But I wasn’t living there.” That’s one way to get out of paying rent: hop a plane to Ireland.



Kyle and Adam had known each other since middle school where they were both losers who were always picked last for sports teams. Instead of playing football with the guys during gym they grabbed a Frisbee and spent their time chasing it down like a pair of golden retrievers. It was good practice for Kyle who later joined the extreme Frisbee league at Earlum, the small college outside of Richmond, Indiana that he and Adam attended. They would sometimes practice together, but Adam never took up the sport seriously. He was too into his music.

Adam played drums in various different bands from eighth grade on. At the moment he was the drummer and lead singer for a ska influenced band called Canceled. In all honesty it was a horrible band; even Adam admitted it; and they didn’t expect to go anywhere with it. It was just for fun.

Everything Adam did was just for fun. All you had to do was look at his class schedule for this semester to see how seriously Adam took his life: Bowling, The History of Fairy Tales, Modern Art for Non-Majors and German One. At first Kyle was impressed at the prospect of Adam taking German, but then he was informed that he didn’t even need it to fill any requirements—of which he still had quite a few to fill.
Kyle on the other hand was diving head first into his major: psychology. He had already taken all his prerequisites and was finally into what he considered the fun stuff. He had graduated from dorm life to having an apartment that he shared with his best bud. Life was sweet as far as Kyle was concerned, if not a bit overwhelming at times.

Besides school and the extreme Frisbee team, there was his job at the local bookstore The Book Shelf and his constant hunt for Misses Right. Not to mention dealing with Adam’s obnoxious shenanigans. Needless to say, this wasn’t the first time Adam had skipped town without little more than a note.

When Adam was eleven he grabbed his Shwin ten-speed and rode his way to the near by shopping mall. He ditched his bike in a bush and went inside to see what was doing.
The next day, in the back of the local paper was a tiny little article stating that some unsuspecting Sears employee had found Adam sleeping in one of the display beds. Adam still has this newspaper clipping pined to the bulletin board in the kitchen. His fifteen minutes of fame.



Kyle took the note with the pathetic shamrock and pinned it to the bulletin board next to the yellowed newspaper clipping. He sighed as he walked to the green flowered couch that he and Adam had found next to a dumpster a few months ago. The smell was finally beginning to dissipate after dousing the couch with bottle after bottle of Febreeze.

Behind the couch was the large picture window that was the highlight of the small apartment. From his third story view Kyle could make out the bell tower of campus and could see the traffic whizzing by below him.

He could also see a girl in a black and yellow jacket walking along the sidewalk. The jacket was pulled close to her body as the early morning breeze blew through her auburn hair. Kyle knew instantly that it was Angie—the girl he had been pining over since he saw her in his Social Psychology class.

He wanted to run down the stairs and catch her. He wanted to start up a conversation with her and eventually ask her to join him for some coffee. He wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her on her un-lipsticked lips. He wanted to do all these things, but what he did do was sit on the green flowered couch and stair at her from his third story window.

Angie kept walking, never knowing that Kyle was three stories above her wanting all these things.

As she walked away Kyle followed her with his eyes. Soon all he could see was a little yellow and black dot bouncing along the sidewalk. Kyle closed his eyes trying to see her again; wishing he had ran down the stairs, but telling himself that he wouldn’t have made it in time even if he had.

With his eyes closed he could make out her face. An oval face free of Mary Kay and Maybileane. A face covered by thick rimmed turtle shell glasses and hair that was beginning to grow out of a close, almost buzzed, cut. Then he saw the rest of her: her yellow and black jacket. The hand made scarf of green that wrapped around her neck a dozen times but still hung to the floor. Her black fisherman’s cap that was cocked to one side and in deep contrast to her red/orange hair. He could see her messenger bag that hung down to her thigh; the buttons that covered it that had funny, cleaver sayings printed on them. He could see her brown corduroy pants and her black Mary Jane shoes. He could see all of her but yet she was still a dream in his mind.

Kyle didn’t know why he was such a pussy when it came to girls. He had just never been comfortable around them, unlike Adam. Kyle couldn’t remember a time when Adam didn’t have a girlfriend. Kyle could count the number of his on one hand.



Two days later Kyle was sitting in his Social Psychology class nervously glancing at the door for Angie to walk in. He was sitting in his usual seat and the one that was normally occupied by Angie was still free. She always sat next to him and they always whispered to each other little comments about their crazy professor Dr. Hoffman. Kyle loved to make Angie laugh by doing his impression of Dr. Hoffman’s absurd speeches that he gave the class every morning; constantly hiking up his Dockers and straightening his tie, but never—never fixing the small, but noticeable cowlick on the back of his head. Kyle had the impression down to a tea, and hearing Angie’s laugh made his heart race.

When Angie walked in Kyle looked quickly away from the door and pretended to busy himself with organizing his desk. He straightened up some papers and took a swig from his Diet Coke. He tried to look casual.

“Hey,” Angie said as she sat down, her long, green scarf sweeping the floor as she did so.
Kyle opened his mouth to reply, but instead a few dribbles of Diet Coke fell out and onto his favorite Steely Dan shirt.

Angie tried to suppress a giggle and said, “Looks like you’ve got the dribble cup.”

Kyle smiled awkwardly and whipped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Looks like it.” He finally said as he looked down at his desk.

“How was your weekend?” It was casual conversation, but Kyle craved it anyway. Just to speak to Angie was a blessing to him and he wouldn’t let the knowledge that this was just polite talk stop him from conversing with her.

“Well, my roommate ditched town without telling me. But other than that it was cool I guess.” He paused for a moment as he searched for something more to say. He didn’t want the conversation to end. “I saw you on Saturday,” he finally blurted out, not sure where this remark would take him.

“Really? Why didn’t you say hi?”

“I was up in my apartment. I just happened to look out the window and you were walking by. I taped on the glass to try and get your attention, but you didn’t hear me.” He made that last part up. He didn’t know why he did; it just felt to him that it added something to the story.

Angie opened her mouth to say something when Dr. Hoffman walked in and raised his hands in the way a preacher does to quiet his congregation. This was Dr. Hoffman’s way of controlling the class, and like the psychology students they were, Angie, Kyle, and the rest of the class had been conditioned to obey this silent gesture. So Angie closed her mouth and only whispered a few nonsense jokes to Kyle the rest of the class.

When class ended Angie stood up, waved to Kyle and walked out of the room, her green scarf flowing behind her. I should go catch her and ask her to grab some lunch. Kyle thought as he watched Angie go. But he slowly packed up his notebook and put on his jacket; deliberately going slowly so he had reason not to go and catch her.



As Kyle walked campus that day he realized that he had forgotten to turn his phone off of silent. He reached into his front pocket and pulled out his Nokia flip phone to change the setting. When he did so a pop up message informed him that he had missed a call and had a voice message. Holding the phone up to his ear he listened as Adam talked, “Hey Kyle. Where the fuck are you? You know how much this call’s costing me? Ah shit. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you got my note. I’m here with Tina. Man, I hate talking to these damn things. Look, I’ll try you again later.”

Kyle hung up annoyed. Adam hadn’t left a number to reach him at. Like I’d really want to spend the money and call Ireland. He thought.

He continued to walk through the campus, on his way to the bus stop, when he spotted in the distance a yellow and black dot bouncing toward him. He stopped walking for a second, trying to look closer at the dot to see who it was. It’s not her. She should be in class or at lunch or something, right? So he began walking again, towards the bus stop, away from the yellow and black dot. But this time he walked slower just in case he thought it is her and she does want to catch up to me.

As he walked it began to drizzle. Not hard at all, but in the middle of February any rain was bitterly cold, especially when you’ve forgotten your umbrella. Kyle bundled up his coat around him and pulled his hat closer on his head trying in vain to keep the rain out. He stole a quick glance behind him and saw that the yellow and black dot was closer now. Only now it was no longer a dot, but a person; it was Angie. But Kyle kept walking. He kept walking because if he stopped then he would have to have something to say to her, and he didn’t know what that was.

Soon, Kyle could hear footsteps behind him and then suddenly a hand clasped his shoulder. Kyle stopped cold and turned around.

“Hey!” Angie said out of breath. “I thought that was you.”

“Hey Angie,” Kyle said while looking at the ground studying a crack in the sidewalk.

“So, sorry I ran out of class in such a hurry today.” Kyle’s head shot up and looked at Angie’s face. Does she know? “I had to hurry to my next class to take a test.”

“Aw, that sucks. Hope you did okay on it.”

“Yeah, well, me too. But I was wondering…we have that test is Social Psyc. next week right?”

“Yeah.”

“So, I was wondering if maybe you’d like to get together and study one night?”

Kyle’s entire body went numb. It felt as though his heart had just exploded. He tried to hide the fact that his hands were shaking uncontrollably.

“Uh, yeah. That’d be great.” Kyle coughed out.

The two continued to stand together in the rain and made their plans. Kyle would meet Angie at Denny’s the next night to go over the chapters for the upcoming test. After they said their goodbyes Kyle continued his trek to the bus stop. As he got closer he saw the bus come and go. He had missed the bus, but he didn’t care.



The next night Kyle paced in his apartment back and forth waiting for the time to go and meet Angie at Denny’s. He had done everything he needed to do to get ready for the study session: he took a shower, got dressed, got his notes together. He had done all of that hours in advance because he was too wound up to sit still. Now it was almost eight o’clock and he still had an hour before he should leave.

Kyle threw himself onto the green flowered couch and turned his laptop on. After it was done booting up he went to his hotmail account to check his email. Besides all the solicitations to watch “young teen girls have sex with donkeys!” he found an email from Adam. He opened it up and it read:

Hey dude! Sorry I couldn’t catch you on the phone the other day. I’ve been super busy here with Tina. We made up and everything, I don’t want to bore you. But I want to let you know I’ve got some real crazy shit to tell you: Tina’s fucking pregnant! Yeah I know what you’re thinking, “how do I know it’s mine?” but Tina’s not like that. Dude, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. Shit, it’s a mess. I’ll try calling you later. —Adam

Kyle leaned back in the green flowered couch and sighed. He actually wasn’t too surprised by this announcement. As many nights as he was kept awake by the pounding of Adam’s headboard against the wall and Tina’s heavy breathing Kyle was just waiting for this to happen. He just never expected the bomb to drop in Ireland.

Kyle moved his mouse around to open up a blank email. He had every intention on replying to Adam’s right then and there. But once he was staring at the blank email he realized that he had nothing to say to him. He didn’t feel it was appropriate to congratulate him since Adam seemed far from pleased with this turn of events. And it wasn’t Kyle’s place to lecture his best friend on the importance of condoms. Besides, that would be a little late in coming anyway. And it didn’t seem appropriate for him to ask Adam where the rent was, not right now at least. So Kyle simply closed the blank email, shut down his computer, grabbed his Psychology notes and walked out the door.


Sitting in Denny’s Kyle tapped his fork nervously and tried to keep himself from drinking any more of his Diet Coke. He had already had one refill, and he’d only been there ten minutes.

Angie wasn’t late…yet. Kyle was just very early. After reading the email from Adam he wanted to get out of the apartment and forget about it. He wanted to concentrate on what was about to take place. It had been years since he had last sat down one on one with a girl. It had been even longer since he’d had a girlfriend.
Kyle suddenly wished Adam had been home so he could ask for advice. After all it was him who helped Kyle through his relationship with his last girlfriend Jane. It was Adam who convinced him that it was finally time to give it up when Jane admitted to being unfaithful. Kyle had wanted to try and work it out, but Adam insisted that he “shouldn’t take shit from some high school chick.” Granted, Kyle and Adam themselves were still in high school, but they seemed to have missed that point.

After finishing off his second Diet Coke Kyle decided he should thumb through his notes before Angie got there so that he could prepare a little. He took his old, worn binder from his equally old and worn book bag and began flipping through pages and pages of notes, Power Point slides and highlighted handouts. But he wasn’t paying any attention to them. What he was watching was a green scarf entering the building.
Angie walked in with her messenger bag slung over her shoulder; her green scarf wrapped around her neck and her fisherman’s cap cocked on her head. Kyle half way stood up at his booth seat and sheepishly waved to catch Angie’s attention. She spotted him and casually walked over.

“Sorry I’m late.” She stated as she sat down and arranged her stuff. “I just got this crazy phone call from my mom. Not that you’d care, but turns out that like a week ago my cousin jumped a plane and went to Europe. She didn’t tell anyone or anything. It’s so weird. Crazy shit like this never happens in my family.”

Kyle was studying Angie’s fisherman’s cap as she spoke. He loved that hat. He’d never seen anyone else ever wear a hat like that except old men outside of Cracker Barrel. She made it something completely different though.

“I like your hat.” Kyle blurted out. Then he realized that he had actually said that sentence out loud and got embarrassed. It was such a stupid thing to say. Here she was stressing over her cousin and all Kyle could say was, “I like your hat.”

Angie seemed confused at first, but then quickly picked up on the new train of the conversation, “My hat? Oh, thanks. That’s funny ‘cause it was the same cousin who got it for me.”

Kyle was embarrassed by his jump in the conversation and tried to bring it back to focus, “What part of Europe did she go to?”

Angie thought for a moment before she spoke, “Ireland. We have family there. She must be staying with them I guess.”

It took a moment for the news to process. Then he thought, Ireland? That’s funny. Angie noticed the strange look that overcame Kyle’s face and looked back at him with an equally confused look. Kyle noticed Angie staring at him and finally said, “Oh, sorry. I was just thinking that that was funny. My roommate just ran off to Ireland too. He was chasing his girlfriend there I guess. I can’t get a hold of him though. I’ve gotten a email and a voice message from him. I just really need to talk to him and help him figure out what he’s going to do.” Kyle was rambling by now but couldn’t figure out a way to end his train of thought, so he kept going. “I just found out that he got Tina, that’s his girlfriend, pregnant. I mean, how does he even know it’s his? Not that Tina’s a whore or anything, but you never know, right?”

Finally Angie cut him off and interjected her own comment, “Did you say his girlfriend’s name is Tina?”

Kyle looked confused and then answered, “Yeah, why?”

“Just that that’s my cousin’s name. Funny. What’s your roommate’s name? My cousin has a boyfriend named Adam. That’s why I’m asking. Wouldn’t that be funny?”

Kyle stopped mid-slurp and looked up at Angie. “I don’t know if funny’s the right word.” Angie cocked her head to the side as though she was asking a question. “My roommate’s name is Adam. Do you think…” he trailed off and let Angie finish his thought.

“Oh my god. I bet we’re talking about the same people! There’s no way! That’s crazy. I mean, what are the odds?”

Angie and Kyle continued to swap stories about there Ireland bound friend or relation before finally deciding that they were indeed talking about the same two people. Once that was established the conversation turned to other things, none of which pertained in the slightest to Social Psychology.

Once their food arrived they decided to try and concentrate on their studying, but it was hopeless. They were each having too much fun just talking together that studying was nearly impossible.

“We should study like this more often.” Angie said as they packed up there stuff. She smiled when she said it and Kyle noticed. “You know, this is like the first time we’ve hung out?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I had a lot of fun too. I can’t wait to call my cousin and tell her!”

“Yeah.” Kyle was thinking in his head what to do next. He didn’t want the night to end. He was having so much fun with Angie, and he was actually comfortable with her. Finally, he blurted out, “You could come over to my place a watch a movie…that is if you want to.”

Angie looked up from putting her stuff in her bag. She smiled shyly, pushed her hair away from her eyes and responded, “That’d be great.”



When the two got back to Kyle’s apartment he set about making sure Angie was comfortable. He offered her a drink and showed her to the couch. Then he went off to get the movie they had talked about on there way to the apartment, Airplane!, a classic comedy that they both enjoyed.

The movie was in Adam’s bedroom, Kyle walked in to retrieve it. When he picked up the movie a piece of paper and some money fell to the floor. Kyle bent down to pick up the paper. It read, “I knew you’d be in here to borrow something without asking. So here’s the damn rent money.” Kyle smiled as he picked up the money and stuffed it into his pants pocket.

With the movie in hand he went back to Angie who was sitting on the green flowered couch. He popped the movie into the VCR and then sat down beside her. As they sat and watched the movie, Angie put her arm around Kyle. Kyle smiled and was glad that Adam was in Ireland.